Make Cute Vintage Frames for Pictures on your Sidebar, using Photoshop!

I love this technique, because it is so cute, and sooo easy :)   First off, I picked up a FREE vintage frame Clip Art from The Graphics Fairy.  Her site is FABULOUS!

Next, I opened it up in Photoshop and re-sized it to fit in my sidebar.

 I did it at 300px wide, but you may want to do it at a different size depending on how large your sidebar is.

 Now, double-click on your "Background" layer, and click OK.

Then, grab your Magic Wand Tool.

With your Magic Wand Tool, simply click on the center of your frame, to select the white inside the frame.  Then hit the delete key on your keyboard to delete the center of the frame (now it should be transparent inside your frame).

Then, open the image of your choice.

Drag it onto your frame file, and size it down so that it completely covers the transparent area on your frame.

Now Drag your image layer so that it is below your frame layer, like so...

Now it should look something like this, feel free to add text like I have, or not :)

Then, do a File > Save for Web.

I saved mine as a PNG, but you could also save it as a JPEG if you like.

That's it!

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Thanks for the Feature!

I was featured over at 30 Days Handmade today!  Check her out, very fun blog :)

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Make a Simple Rotating Header in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to make a header like this one:  **it is the same concept as making a Blinky

It is great for Photography blog designs and just if you want to add a little something different, but it is MUCH easier than doing a flash header.  NOTE: You can only save this as a GIF file, so your quality will not be as high as a JPEG or PNG, so if you need something really high quality, this is not the best tutorial for you :)

Let's get started!  First, I have opened 4 different images (you can use as many as you like).  Then I am going to grab my Crop tool.  I am going to crop all of these to 800px by 350px (do what ever you like, but make sure to crop all of them the exact same).

After I have Cropped all of my images, I made a new document the same size as my cropped images.

Now drag all of your images on to the new document that you have made, and arrange your layers in the order that you would like them to go in the Header (top to bottom)

Once you have done that, you are going to go to your Window > Animation

Now you should have a window appear that looks something like this:

Now, click on the New Frame button (shown below)

Then you are going to Hide your top layer like shown below (click on the eye to hide).

Now it should look something like this (both slides should show a different image).  Then Click on the New Frame button again.

... and hide the next layer down.

.... and repeat the last 2 steps until you are finished with all your layers (don't hide your last image though).

Now if you push the Play button, you will notice that your slideshow will go REALLY fast, so to make it the speed you want it, click on the Sec. below each slide, and select a time.  I selected 5.0 secs, but you can do whatever suits you :)

Last thing, make sure that the slideshow is set to Forever.

Now, we are going to do a File > Save for Web & Devices...

 Then you are going to select GIF (it won't work with any other file type).

 Then you can adjust your quality settings, these are the options I chose:

Now you need to upload your file to your Free Photobucket account.   (before you upload, make sure that you click on Customize your upload options (shown at the bottom of the image below).

 Make sure that you select Best possible quality(while staying 1mb or less)  **my account says 2mb because I have a pro account.  (If you skip this, Photobucket might edit the dimensions of your image)

Once you have uploaded your GIF file, copy your Direct Link code

When you go to edit your Header, make sure that you select the From the web option, YOU CANNOT UPLOAD it from your computer.... it will not work.

Click Save, and there you have your new rotating header, it is not quite as slick as a flash header, but it is way easier, and faster!

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Make Your Logo into a Photoshop Brush for an Easy Watermark!

I love using brushes as a watermark, it is much easier that layering another file, and sizing it, then changing the opacity and all that.  If you have a logo, I would recommend this!  I do it for all my clients that purchase a logo.

So first thing you need to do, is make your logo into a simple black and white image (jpeg, png, whatever).  I size mine at 2500px wide, by whatever tall (that is largest you can make a brush).

Once you have your image made, open it in Photoshop, it should look something like this:

Now you are going to click on Edit > Define Brush Preset...

Now name your Brush.

Then click on your brush tool, and click on your brush palate and it should look something like this.  Mine shows 2 brushes, because the last brush I had open was another logo.  Yours will be whatever you had open last, plus your brush tagged on the end.

Now, I am going to right click and delete all the brushes, except the one that I just made.  **Don't worry, you will not loose those brushes, we are doing a type of Save As.   You can also make more brushes at this point, so that it is a set.  So if you have a symbol that you use, or a different version of your logo, make them all now, so that you can have a nice little set of brushes.

 Once you have all the Brushes that you want, click on the little Arrow with a circle around it and click on Save Brushes...

Make a name for you Brush(es) and Save it.

 I saved mine on my desktop, but I really need it in my Applications > Adobe Photoshop CS5 > Presets > Brushes Folder.  So Drag it there, or in the above step, just save it there.

Now in order to have my new brush set show up in my list of brushes, simply Quit Photoshop, and reopen.

Now click on your little arrow with the circle around it, and There it is!

Now to watermark my image, I like to drop my Opacity down just a little bit...

...and Stamp!   (That is a photograph taken my hubby by the way, isn't he good:)

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Time to Announce our Winners!!

This was so much fun, but it was way hard!  You all did such a great job.  I am so glad that I had 5 other judges to help me, I just couldn't have picked on my own.  So, first, THANK YOU judges!  Second, this was a close pick, there was only 1 point difference between the first and second place!

There were a 125 points possible between all 6 judges.

Our First Place Winner, with 108 points was.....

 
 ....and in 2nd, with 107 points!

..... finally, our 3rd Place winner, with 101 points.....

Please visit our winners, by clicking on the images above, and Congratulate them!  Thank you so much to everyone that entered, I hope you love your new looks!


***Winners, email me and we will talk about your prizes!

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